Mirra Andreeva and Clara Tauson will meet for the first time in Saturday’s Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships final, with a career-best title and major ranking milestones on the line. Here’s everything you need to know.

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When is the women's singles final? 

The Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships is the second of 10 WTA 1000 tournaments on tour. It is the final leg of a trio of back-to-back tournaments in the Middle East. 

Both singles and doubles finals will be played on Saturday, Feb. 22. The Doubles final will open Championship Saturday at 4:30 pm. and the singles final will follow at 7 p.m. (10 a.m. ET). 

Dubai is on Gulf Standard Time (GMT +4).

What are the points and prize-money at stake?

By making their first WTA 1000 finals, both Andreeva and Tauson have assured themselves 650 PIF WTA Ranking points and $351,801 in prize money. 

Saturday's champion will take home a total of 1,000 points and $597,000.

Victory for Andreeva, 17, will boost her into the Top 10 for the time. She could become the first 17-year-old to be ranked inside the Top 10 since Nicole Vaidisova in 2017.

Tauson, 22, is set to eclipse her career-high ranking at No. 33 and enter the Top 30. Victory on Saturday would trigger her Top 20 debut. 

How did Andreeva and Tauson get here?

Saturday's final has the youngest combined age at a WTA 1000 final since the format's inception in 2009. In fact, it is the youngest final at a WTA 500 event or higher since Swiatek faced Gauff at 2022 Roland Garros. Andreeva and Tauson paved their paths to their first WTA 1000 finals by vanquishing the two women who have dominated at this level. 

Andreeva has beaten three Grand Slam champions in Dubai, besting Marketa Vondrousova, No. 2 Iga Swiatek and No. 7 Elena Rybakina. Her 6-3, 6-3 win over Swiatek in the quarterfinals matched her best career win by ranking -- she beat then-No.2 Aryna Sabalenka last year at Roland Garros -- and she is now the youngest player to beat three major champions at a tournament since Maria Sharapova in 2004. 

'Incredible!' Andreeva's magical pass stuns Rybakina in Dubai semis

Andreeva is the youngest player to reach a WTA 1000 final and the third teenager to do so since the start of 2020. She joins Swiatek and Gauff in that club and will look to match their results (both Swiatek and Gauff won their WTA 1000 final debuts).

Tauson is one of the few players on tour who can relate to Andreeva's current status as the teenage phenom du jour. She was Denmark's first No. 1 junior in 2019 and came into the 2025 season having already won two WTA titles. She will leave Dubai as the winningest player of the season. Her 6-4, 6-7(4), 6-3 win over Karolina Muchova in the semifinals was her tour-leading 15th of the year, one more than Swiatek and Australian Open champion Madison Keys. 

On Saturday, Tauson has a chance to win a second title of the year after winning her first in Auckland. Her level in Dubai has been a revelation. After narrowly escaping Elina Svitolina in a third-set tiebreak in the second round, Tauson has knocked out No. 1 Sabalenka, 20-year-old Linda Noskova and No. 17 Muchova to make her first WTA 1000 final.

How do they stack up?

Head to Head

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This will be the first meeting between the two former junior No. 1s.

What milestones are at stake on Saturday?

Andreeva is playing her third WTA final and first since finishing runner-up at Ningbo last fall. She is bidding to win her second career title after winning her first last year at Iasi. A win would deliver Andreeva her Top 10 debut on the PIF WTA Rankings. Already the youngest WTA 1000 finalist in the format's history, she would also become the youngest champion at this tournament level. 

Tauson is playing her fifth final and second of the season. She is trying to win her fourth career title and become the second player to win multiple titles this season after Adelaide and Australian Open champion Keys.

What are they saying? 

Andreeva: "Honestly it's crazy because at first I was not very positive before coming to Dubai. I was like, 'OK, well, I'm just going to play.' As always, when you don't think about how you're going to play, you just play your best tennis. In the end, it's one of your best tournaments."

Tauson: "My phone has been blowing up. I haven't responded to anyone other than my best friends and my family yet. I'm sorry to those people, but it's been quite a lot. I mean, I'm going to respond to everyone when I'm finished. Now I'm going to still focus on the matches I have to play, yeah, focus on myself, not look too much on the social media stuff. It's more important that I keep my focus here. After the tournament I can talk to everyone."

Andreeva: "I would say that when I first start playing WTA tournaments, nobody expected anything from me, so I didn't have any pressure. I was just going out on the court, I was just playing. If it doesn't happen, if it doesn't work, and if I lose the match, everyone was still happy with my level and with the way I play. Now, I think it's been two years now already and now I have some kind of pressure that people are expecting some things from me.

People are saying, 'Yeah, well, she's going to be No. 1. She's going to win the Slams. She's going to be great.' That's another thing that we worked on with my psychologist. It's easier for me to think these people are saying this because they want to put pressure on me, and they put pressure on me because probably they are afraid of the way I play."

Tauson: "I think the consistency has been very important for me. I don't think I've ever put down these kind of results on this level. So it's really nice for me that I can go out there and play freely. I mean, in most matches on this level I'm going to be the underdog. But hopefully soon I'll have a better ranking so the pressure's going to be on me."